Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about IDOT

Revolt Against Illiana Undeterred By IDOT’s Latest Scare Tactic

By Steven Vance | Sep 29, 2014 | 12 Comments

Local advocates are scoffing at the suggestion, made by an Illinois Department of Transportation representative last week, that striking the Illiana Tollway from the Chicago region’s long-term regional plan would jeopardize transportation spending across the entire region. Instead, advocates insist that deleting the costly, sprawl-inducing road would cause at most a brief procedural delay in other […]

Preckwinkle, Environmental Groups Want CMAP to Drop Illiana

By Steven Vance | Sep 9, 2014 | 25 Comments

The Sierra Club and other organizations intend to petition the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to remove the Illiana Tollway from its regional plan, effectively disallowing the state from building the new highway. The deletion is possible because CMAP, the federally-designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for this region, is finalizing a mandatory update of its GO […]

“Everything’s On The Table” For North Lake Shore Drive, So Share Your Ideas

By Jessica Papanek | Jul 16, 2014 | 7 Comments

Last week, city and state planners opened a call to the public to suggest potential elements for the North Lake Shore Drive reconstruction study, which they’re call “Redefine the Drive.” Almost a year ago, the Illinois and Chicago Departments of Transportation hosted a series of public meetings to gauge public support and solicit volunteers to join […]

Do All Bike Crashes Deserve Police Reports?

By Steven Vance | Jul 15, 2014 | 10 Comments

Crash data, more so than any other regularly collected and readily reported public data sets, shine a bright light upon the most dangerous parts of our city’s streets. Crash reports tell authorities who was injured, where, and under what circumstances, and the Illinois Department of Transportation collects the same information from all police departments statewide. IDOT uses […]

Streeterville Residents Redefine Their Own Bit of Lake Shore Drive

By Steven Vance | Jul 10, 2014 | 21 Comments

John Krause isn’t the only north lakefront resident who realizes that the Illinois Department of Transportation’s “Redefine The Drive” reconstruction of North Lake Shore Drive is a chance to reinvent how the city meets the shore and the street. In a bid to add more green space in Streeterville, a high-rise downtown neighborhood with with just […]

CMAP Tells IDOT: “To Each Municipality, According to Their Needs”

By Steven Vance | Jul 8, 2014 | 9 Comments

The Illinois Department of Transportation, whose secretary resigned last week after accusations about patronage hiring, distributed $545 million in gas tax revenue to fix streets in almost 3,000 jurisdictions last year. While this sounds like a lot of money, poor road and bridge conditions across the state can attest to the fact that these funds […]

Architect Urges Big-Picture, Design Thinking For North Lake Shore Drive

By Steven Vance | Jul 7, 2014 | 128 Comments

Local architect John Krause sees the reconstruction of North Lake Shore Drive, one of Chicago’s most scenic locations, as a chance to think big — not just about the road, but also about parks, transit, trails, the shoreline, and the future of the city alongside it. The Illinois Department of Transportation isn’t used to thinking […]

Illiana Boondoggle Now Guaranteed to Cost Taxpayers At Least $250 Million

By Shaun Jacobsen | May 7, 2014 | 16 Comments

Remember the “innovative” public-private partnership Governor Quinn lauded as a way to build the “21st century” Illiana Expressway, without shifting the entire cost onto the general public? Or remember CMAP’s statement opposing the project, based on its contradictory growth projections, overestimated benefit to the region, and severe financial risk, and the multiple op-eds and articles that followed, all expressing concern about the expressway’s ability to […]

Don’t Despair, Evanston & Oak Park May Still Get Divvy Stations

By John Greenfield | May 6, 2014 | 5 Comments

Last month, it was a bummer when the Illinois Department of Transportation announced $52.7 million in funding for transportation projects, including many bike and pedestrian projects, but the expansion of Divvy into the suburbs wasn’t one of them. However, officials say they’re hopeful money can be found to extend the system past the city limits. […]

Could IDOT Bike Plan Represent a Turning Point for the Car-Centric Agency?

By John Greenfield | Apr 15, 2014 | 5 Comments

The Illinois Department of Transportation has a long history of promoting driving before all other modes. However, its new Illinois Bike Transportation Plan, released this morning at the Illinois Bike Summit in Champaign, may represent a new direction for the department. In recent years, IDOT has pushed wasteful, destructive highway projects like the Circle Interchange […]

Tell IDOT to Rehab LSD as a Complete Street, Not a Speedway

By Jessica Papanek | Apr 14, 2014 | 72 Comments

On Thursday, the Illinois Department of Transportation kicked off the feedback process for the the North Lake Shore Drive rehabilitation’s future alternatives analysis, at the third meeting of the project’s task forces. During the previous two meetings, it seemed like IDOT would insist upon just another highway project, with minimal benefits for pedestrians, transit users […]

Chicago Building Four Miles of Protected Bike Lanes This Year

By Steven Vance | Apr 7, 2014 | 13 Comments

The City of Chicago announced a new slate of bikeway projects today, outlining about 15 miles of new buffered bike lanes and a little more than four miles of protected lanes to be built in 2014. Under the plan for this year, protected bikeway construction in Chicago would continue to outpace every other American city except […]

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